Early Finisher Ideas

Sunriver, Oregon with family and friends. It was very fun and relaxing. Now I am back in town and ready to get into a summer routine (not too much structure). Well, back to teaching ideas. This coming year, I want to come up with a better plan for my early finishers. Right now, I have them get a book or find something for them to do. But this coming year I would like to come up with various binders that they can bring back to their desk and choose an activity. The first binder I have made is a Find, Tally and Graph binder. I have made a lot of Find, Tally and Graph packs, but some of them don’t always fit into what I am teaching. My kids loves them and I would like to use them, so I came up with a plan. Here is the binder:

I laminated all of the collage sheets and then put the coordinating tally and graph pages in plastic sleeves behind each collage sheet. I plan to each the kids how to open take the collage sheet out so they can use it to complete the practice pages. I’m going to put a pencil zip pouch in the front to store a Vis-a-Vis pend and eraser. They can use the pen to complete the practice pages instead of me constantly copying pages.

Collage Sheet

Graphing Page

Data Sheet

The page after the data sheets, I am putting copies of the create your own math problems papers in their own sleeve.

The very last page, I put a pocket folder. This is where I am storing the build your own math pages. These are the same for all of the activities, so I can put them in one pocket.

I am hoping to make a binder for some of the major standards. The early finishers can choose a binder, or I may decide which binder they use, but they can choose the activity in the binder. We’ll see how it goes. I’ll update once they are trained and have utilized it for a while. What do you have your early finishers do?

What is all of the buzz about bees? A lot! Bees are so important for our ecosystem but unfortunately some species are endangered. Kids are usually so curious about bugs, so you have instant engagement when you talk about bees! I like to teach the importance of them, and talk about ways we can help them out. There are so many great bee resources out there for teaching these insects and other pollinators. [ 442 more words ]

We had polar animal adventure day in first grade last week. Polar animal adventure day is a theme day we have as a culminating activity for your polar animal unit. We set up six stations and rotated the first graders through them. Each station was about 15 minutes long. Here are the stations we had….